It was a nightmare.
It was all just a horrible,horriblenightmare.
It was also some really good inspiration.
But first; the key.
~~~
April 23rd, 2022
I couldn’t find the key. I tossed my apartment, and I couldn’t find the goddamn key. To top it off, nothing in my house was sharp enough to cut it off either, so I had to opt for an outfit that allowed a scarf for the dinner date this evening.
I put on my favorite deep blue, drop-back, floor-length dress. I hardly ever got to wear it, but with the slit all the way up to my thigh and the pools of fabric around my breasts and the base of my spine, it was the perfect dress for the cool Spring weather. And it went well with the thin black scarf I was able to tie around my neck and drape down my spine. The perfect spring look.
I paired them with a pair of black heels and pulled my hair half up in braids and pins. I finally put on a full face of make-up, and some silver bracelets to cover up what I had done to myself last night before grabbing my clutch and heading out.
A cab waited for me outside of my building. I slid in easily and we pulled away from the curb.
I sent Steven a text saying I was busy tonight and settled into my seat, but my eyes quickly fell to my exposed thigh. The burn mark was still angry and red. It pained me every time the fabric of my dress slid across it, but I couldn’t cover it up. The white gauze would be much more noticeable than the mark itself at this point. If I sat just right, Mr. Kingsmen wouldn’t see it.
I swallowed and pulled my dress over to cover it. I must have spilled hot tea or leaned in too close to the oven last night, that was all. Perfectly reasonable.
I was smoothing out my dress just as we pulled up in front of one of the more expensive restaurants in the city. My mom had no idea what was in this city so he must have set it up.
Part of me expected there to be cameras. People with microphones and recorders asking for a statement from me about why I was meeting with a client on my own. Where were my parents? Why wasn’t my dad doing this? Why send me, the young runaway prodigal of the Lemont family fortune.
But there was nobody there.
No cameras, no recorders, just normal people enjoying a night out.
I was grateful for it. Most of my life I wondered why there had always been cameras around. Yes, we were a prolific family who very nearly ran the oil industry single-handedly, but we weren’t celebrities. How often had my mother scheduled them to be there? How often had she planned for them to always be there just to be in the paper? Did they follow us because of who we were or did my mom follow them because she wanted to be looked at as a local celebrity?
The lines blurred when the money grew because the truth was, I would never know that answer. All I had were theories, and my biggest one was that the paparazzi and the news reporters didn’t give a shit about us, not after the first handful of stories, but my mom? She was more in love with the limelight than she was with her family.
I walked through the front doors and up to the host. “Good evening,” I greeted as she smiled back. “I’m here for Lemont.” I hated that name. I hated it so much that it made my already tightened stomach curl into even tighter knots.
She frowned and shook her head, worry in her eyes. “There is no Lemont reservation tonight.”
My own brows furrowed for half a second before I smoothed them out. “Kingsmen?”
Her smile brightened a moment later. She must have found the name. “Of course, right this way.”
I followed her through the restaurant to a table in the center of the room where a man was already waiting for me.
Guilt filled me. Crap, I was late, wasn’t I? Traffic must have been worse than it felt.
“Thank you,” I told the woman and closed the distance between us, studying him carefully as I did.
He was wearing an expensive suit, a long trench coat resting over the back of an extra chair he had pulled up to the table. He was leaning back in his chair, his legs crossed, his hand around the base of a wine glass, his bald head reflecting the dim lights above.
From this view, I couldn’t really gauge his age, but my guess was around the same age as my father. Late 40’s, early 50’s.
I stepped up to the table, smiling warmly. “Mr. Kingsmen?”
He looked over before standing and turning to face me. His eyes were bright blue, his face clean shaven, kind looking. He was smiling brightly, warmth seeping from his pores.
He was a good man, that much I could tell, and I felt my shoulders relax just a hair. “You must be Mrs. Lemont’s secretary,” he beamed, gesturing for my hand.
